March 2, 2011

Barnes & Nobl Settles Lawsuit With Spring Design

Barnes & Noble Inc. settled a lawsuit brought against it by Spring Design, which accused the bookseller of illegally copying a screen design for its popular Nook electronic book reader.

Spring is granting Barnes & Noble a non-exclusive license for all of its patents and patent applications under the agreement.

Spring Design said in its complaint that it had shared the dual-display design of its Alex eReader with Barnes & Noble when the companies held talks that year about a possible partnership.

The company said Barnes & Noble later incorporated features of Alex into its Nook, breaching a nondisclosure agreement.

Barnes & Noble launched the first version of the Nook e-reader in 2009 to compete with Amazon.com Inc's market leader in the growing ebook market. Barnes & Noble claimed last week that it controlled 25 percent share of that market.